A Tiding of Magpies

by Steve Burrows

  As the inspector closed a buff file on his desk. Jones could see the name scrawled on the label in black, felt-tipped pen: Foulness Island. He looked at Jejeune. “They tell me the review of the case has been concluded. I must say, I found it fascinating how everything unfolded. Particularly your idea of triangulating two foghorn signals to pinpoint the exact location of the kidnapper’s phone call.”

  One short burst only, from two separate sources, a common enough sound off Foulness Island that it wouldn’t set off any alarm bells with the kidnapper, but scheduled exactly to fall during a prearranged phone call.

  “There was no guarantee it would work,” said Jejeune simply.

  “But it did. And knowing the exact location and volume of the foghorns when they sounded allowed them to triangulate to where they had been detected on the call.”

  It appeared so logical, now, that the kidnapper would have chosen the closest reception point to where he was holding the hostages to make his calls. Jejeune recalled how much more uncertain it seemed at the time.

  Mansfield Jones didn’t strike Jejeune as the type of person who would go in for effusive praise, so perhaps this approving look was as close as he got. But Jones wouldn’t have approved of other things Jejeune had done that day. His drive out to see the Iberian Magpie while he was waiting for the sound lab’s analysis to come back. Going out to a location where he couldn’t be reached on his cellphone. There was nothing to approve of in that.

  “I came here to tell you what I’ve discovered about lead shot. It seemed important to you,” said Jones. His voice was tentative, uncertain, almost as if apologizing for his visit.

  Jejeune offered the M.E. a seat to put him at his ease. In his surprise at seeing Jones in his office in the first place, he had neglected to ask why he had come. But he realized the findings must be significant to bring Jones up here. At least, the M.E. must have found them so.

  “The research suggests that two one-hundred-gram portions of improperly dressed game bird meat per week could increase an adult’s lead exposure up to eightfold. Based on my own calculations, I am confident that consumption of two game bird meals a week could be enough to cause kidney or heart problems,” said Jones. “Furthermore, my research suggests rural people in Eastern Europe often cook game meat in vinegar, which is acidic. It would allow the lead to dissolve and be absorbed by the body more easily.”

  “Would the effects be as bad on children?”

  “Worse,” said Jones emphatically. “Pregnant women and small children are particularly vulnerable to elevated lead levels. A young child eating one thirty-gram portion of game bird meat a week would mean their lead consumption was at a level known to affect mental acuity.”

  He handed Jejeune a paper. “I’ve prepared a report for you. The section on fetal development is the part I suspect you will be most interested in.”

  Jejeune scanned it quickly and nodded. It contained the information he had been looking for, waiting for all this time. He had his answer now. He had known beyond doubt that Paulina Kowalski loved her son, cherished him. Yet when he had first gone to give her the news about the discovery of the body, she had shown such an unnatural conviction about his fate; no hope, no disbelief, no desire for anything beyond the truth she was being confronted with. And now he knew why. We would lay down our lives for those we love, she had told him. To sacrifice our happiness is nothing.

  “You weren’t to know, of course,” Jones’s comment brought Jejeune back to the office, where the man was sitting before him, staring at him earnestly. “That the sound laboratory would get their breakthrough so quickly. It would have been an extraordinarily complex set of data to work through — locations, distances, the ambient air quality, the refractivity of water and the effect it would have had on the sounds over distance. There was no reason to expect they would be able to complete their calculations any earlier than they had estimated. By rights, you should have had plenty of time to get out to Lonely Oak Point and see that bird. As you believed you did.”

  Perhaps. But it was always a possibility the Operations Centre at the Met would receive the results earlier than projected. And he had known, too, there was limited cellphone coverage along that route. After all, he’d based his entire plan to pinpoint the hostage’s location on the very fact that the kidnapper could only find a cell signal in specific places on Foulness Island, just across the estuary. And this was why he could never forgive himself for his journey to see the bird. Because when he set out that day, he must have known somewhere in the back of his mind that there was a possibility they wouldn’t be able to contact him. And yet he had still gone. So although his actions that day might have been justifiable for the good Dr. Jones, for Jejeune himself they would never be excusable. The knowledge that Montague Harrison had died because of the delay in being able to contact him was something that Domenic Jejeune was never going to be able to escape. Nothing could erase that guilt. Not even his rescue of Carolyn Gresham.

  As Jones prepared to leave, he hesitated, lingering a moment longer. “I’m curious about the bird you saw that day.” he said. “The Iberian Azure-winged Magpie. I wonder, how could you be sure it was a genuine wild sighting? How could you tell it wasn’t simply a bird that had escaped from captivity? I’m told these birds are quite popular in private collections.”

  “Someone took photos of it that day. The feather wear patterns matched a bird that had been seen in northern France a few days before, and in Carcassonne before that. It represented a progression up from its range in southern Spain.”

  Jones nodded. “Merely circumstantial evidence, then?” He smiled. “I’m not at all sure the uncertainty of birding would suit me. But I suppose, in the end, only you can decide if you have enough facts to justify your beliefs.” He looked at Jejeune significantly. “Though in this case, I would be inclined to accept the sighting as legitimate. I have seen the way you treat information, Inspector. You seem to appreciate that facts should be beacons leading into the unknown, not be mere footprints on a path you have already chosen.”

  Jejeune nodded. Beacons. Like the broom staves that once marked a route across a tidal pathway. But what happened when those markers disappeared, when time claimed them, or the elements, or the sea? Then you were left without anything to guide you. You found yourself alone, out on a narrow, treacherous path, with only uncertainty around you.

  Jones paused one last time before leaving. “If you will permit me to say so, Inspector, you should allow yourself some credit for saving Carolyn Gresham’s life that day. I cannot imagine what it would have been like for that poor young woman standing on that causeway, frozen in place by her terror, waiting for death to claim her. It’s remarkable you found her at all in that thick fog. It would have been like searching for someone in pitch darkness.”

  Or on a night with no moonlight, thought Jejeune. It was the final piece, the one small detail that brought everything together, that answered the main question: Why? A night with no moonlight, with no Bay of Rainbows to see, no Sea of Tranquility, nor any other of Lindy’s lyrical features. A perfect night for a human smuggling operation. But if it ran just a little longer than planned, perhaps even the milky light of the early dawn that followed would have been enough for someone to witness it.

  One phone call would be all that was needed now, one confirmation, and Jejeune would have his answers. All of them. When he looked up, Jones had left his office. He would likely never appreciate the extraordinary contribution he had just made. But he’d delivered the truth, at last. And perhaps, for Mansfield Jones, that would have been enough.

  48

  “Good morning, Danny. Welcome. Please come in.”

  Shepherd’s greeting was so effusive Maik thought for a moment she might actually round the desk and come over to hug him. He stood uncertainly near the door of her office, just in case. But the DCS got quickly down to business, even if her radiant disposition remained in place.

  “The inspector here, our brilliant DCI —�
� she couldn’t resist a smile in his direction “— thinks you may have gained some insight from your chat with Carolyn Gresham … or Weller, as she is now, I suppose. It’s not my case, of course, but I know it’s been consuming a lot of your time,” she shot a quick look between the men, “both of you. And extraordinarily enough, it even seems to have had you two at loggerheads. So, if you have found anything to help wrap this thing up and package it off back down to the Met where it belongs, I’d be most interested to hear it.”

  Maik shifted uneasily. “I’m not sure everything is quite as it once seemed, ma’am,” he said cautiously, “though I’ve not got any actual evidence to back that up.”

  Shepherd looked across at Jejeune and she could tell that he, too, had found things that did not fit the accepted view of what had happened, the view that was recorded in the case file marked Pending Review. And Jejeune, she suspected, might have some actual evidence. She regarded the men warily. “As I say, this is not my case, so I can’t order you, but I’m advising you as a colleague that revisiting this case will not be well-received. A quick closure was needed. Carolyn Gresham had been through enough. The entire family had. No one wanted the investigation to drag on. Everybody got what they wanted from the findings. We now know for certain that Vincent Canby’s confession wasn’t coerced, or tainted in any way,” a quick look at Jejeune here, Maik noticed, “so opening up the case again can only cause damage. Damage that might linger,” she added heavily.

  But what of the damage if they did not open it up again? thought Jejeune. Would Andrea Canby not want to learn her husband was innocent? Would her son not want to know his father was not the criminal the world considered him to be? But they were already living their new life back with her family in Bonaire. Fresh air. A new start. Did they want this part of their past brought up again? Or were they prepared to let it lie, like everyone else? Perhaps Shepherd was right. Perhaps.

  “So, onto the case at hand,” she announced. “You’ve had something of a breakthrough, I understand?” Shepherd’s bright energy suggested she’d already left their previous discussion in the past. It was time for her detectives to do the same.

  Jejeune nodded. “I’m waiting for one piece of information and I’ll be in a position to make an arrest.”

  Shepherd waited. After several moments of silence, she looked over at Maik in wonder. “And are we permitted to know who?” she asked sarcastically.

  Jejeune sighed. It was a function of his work, he supposed, this need to hold on to information, to conceal what you knew, or how much, or about whom, until you were ready to use it to your advantage. It was no wonder it fostered suspicions of secrecy and scheming, even when they were unfounded. But he knew he could get away with it today. He had brought Shepherd the news she had so desperately wanted to hear. Eric was innocent. And now, she would grant him anything he wanted, indulge him in any intrigue he chose. “I just need twenty-four hours.”

  She looked astonished. Maik did, too. But as Jejeune had predicted, she granted him his request. “Most enthralling, I have to say, but if you’re certain it will lead to a safe conviction, Domenic, then why not.”

  “It will,” he said simply.

  “And you won’t require an arrest team to accompany you?”

  “No,” said Jejeune. “I don’t believe I will.”

  “Well then,” she said briskly, “if there’s nothing else, I imagine we all have plenty to be getting on with.”

  “Ray Hayes has been asking about Lindy.”

  The sentence seemed to come from somewhere deep within Jejeune, spurting out as if he had no control over it.

  In the stillness that followed, Shepherd could only look at him. It was a moment before she spoke. “So, it was him?”

  “Not at the church in Elvery. But it was almost certainly Hayes who set the explosion that injured Lindy.”

  For the first time since she had known him, Jejeune looked lost. Ray Hayes was bringing his war to Domenic, and he had chosen Lindy as their battleground. And the detective had no way of stopping him. He looked so young at this moment. It was easy to forget that he was. He’d achieved so much already and had taken on so much responsibility. But now, he was facing the biggest challenge of his life, and he had no idea how to deal with it. She wanted to offer him her sympathy, but what he needed from her was cold-eyed pragmatism.

  “Of course, we’ll put everyone on this immediately, Domenic. It shall have full priority. We’ll get a description out to all officers.”

  “I don’t believe there’s an immediate threat,” he said quickly, “Hayes is out of the country at the moment.”

  She nodded. “Then we’ll watch for his return.” She paused. “It will be difficult to do more than that now. As you know, there’s no evidence against Hayes, or anything we can even use as a pretext for bringing him in, even if he’s spotted. We would be able to spare a uniform to protect Lindy, however, in case he slips back into the country undetected.”

  “I’d like to keep this from Lindy. For now, at least.”

  Shepherd looked at him warily. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

  “She’s not one to shy away from something like this. I think she’d want to show Hayes that she wouldn’t be intimidated.”

  Shepherd inclined her head slightly. “It might draw him out, tempt him into a mistake.”

  Jejeune shook his head. “Hayes is not given to making mistakes.”

  She looked at Maik to see how much of this he already knew. Some, she decided, but not all of it.

  “So what do you propose?”

  “I have an idea, but I’d like to give it some more thought.”

  “Of course. In the meantime, if you think of anything else, or need anything from me, you know you only have to ask.” She looked at him earnestly over the top of her glasses, as she had done so many times before, in different circumstances. “I mean it, Domenic, anything at all.”

  Maik approached his DCI as they left Shepherd’s office. “Any chance we could take a run somewhere tomorrow?”

  “I have to drop Lindy off at Wawel at eight o’clock.” Jejeune smiled at Maik. “Her car is still not ready. And then I have something else to take care of. But I could swing by and get you after that.”

  Something else to take care of. Jejeune must be confident there would be no problems with his arrest, thought Maik, if he was willing to schedule a trip afterward. Maik had never been involved in an arrest yet that had gone entirely as planned, but he had long since ceased to be surprised by his DCI. If Jejeune said he would pick him up, then he would.

  “Where were you thinking of going?”

  “Foulness Island,” said Maik. “There’s a couple of things there I’d like to check, before anybody closes the file for good.”

  There was a moment of silence before Jejeune nodded. “Okay. Tomorrow then.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  49

  “This is Eric Chappell. He is a journalist.” Jejeune looked across at Eric, as if to verify he was okay with the description. Eric smiled his approval and shook Paulina Kowalski’s hand. It was cold and unwelcoming. Perhaps like the woman herself.

  She was sitting up in bed, propped against some pillows. She looked around the room uneasily, as if unsure why Jejeune would have chosen to bring this man to her hospital room. And then ask the staff for a few moments of privacy.

  Jejeune sat down unbidden in the chair beside the bed. Eric retreated to the only other seat in the room, in the far corner.

  “I am here to tell you I know who murdered Jakub Kowalski,” said Jejeune.

  Paulina Kowalski’s expression didn’t change. It was still wary, uneasy.

  “The lines between right and wrong have been blurring for me lately, Mrs. Kowalski. Truth and facts, morality and ethics; I’m not sure I even know what justice looks like anymore.”

  Jejeune’s candour was shocking. He had been a pillar of moral certitude for so long in Eric’s life. If Domenic Jejeune was starting to
lose his footing, what hope was there for the rest of them?

  “This case challenged all I thought I knew,” said Jejeune. “About people, about what they were capable of. The truth seemed impossible to believe, so much so that I even began to doubt the facts.” He paused and looked at Paulina Kowalski for a long moment. “But the facts weren’t wrong.”

  Paulina Kowalski shifted uneasily in her bed. Eric couldn’t recall the last time he’d drawn a breath. But neither one said anything.

  “At the time your son went missing, Curtis Angeren was looking for him,” said Jejeune. “He knew that while Jakub was out searching for Ruddy Ducks, he had witnessed criminal activity along the coast; Curtis Angeren smuggling people into the country by boat. Angeren thought your son may have photographic evidence of this. He didn’t. But Angeren couldn’t be sure. He thought he might find it in your house, or in your son’s locker.”

  Jejeune eased himself back into the chair. He had breezed by the charges of human smuggling against Curtis Angeren so swiftly that Eric was only now beginning to take them in. But Paulina Kowalski was interested in the other things he had said, the ones concerning her son.

  “This is all? You say you know this, but I think you do not have proof of any of it.”

  “No, I don’t. But that is what happened. It is why Curtis Angeren was looking for your son. And you knew this. You also knew Angeren’s reputation. You knew he was relentless, you knew he would never stop looking for Jakub. He would keep on coming, keep on hunting for him. And when he found him, he would kill him. Only one thing could stop Curtis Angeren looking for your son — if he knew Jakub was already dead.”

  In the silence, Eric fancied he could hear his own heart beating. Paulina Kowalski sat stock still, watching Jejeune, like prey observing the approach of a predator.

  “These are your thoughts, Inspector. You cannot say they were mine. No one you will speak to will ever tell you they have heard me say these things.”